I never understand why people obtain music only to put it on a listening To-Do list and then never get around to it.
I guess there's people who collect music and then there's others who listen to the records they collect.
Call me weird, but I'd feel ashamed to get a record and never listen to it. All of the 34,000+ songs in my music library has graced my ears at least once.
>Call me weird, but I'd feel ashamed to get a record and never listen to it. All of the 34,000+ songs in my music library has graced my ears at least once.
If that "at least once" was actually "just once" for most of then, then you're not that different from those other people then, as songs as meant for multiple listens. A cursory single listen (and perhaps while doing something else at the time too, or with skipping forward) it's not much different than no listen at all.
I love Led Zeppelin. When I was younger, I bought everything they released and listened to it obsessively. I heard on reddit they're planning to sweep up the dust from the studio floors again this year and make another lost recordings release. I can tell you, I will probably listen to Physical Graffiti another dozen times before I die, but I'm not going to touch BBC Sessions again except for the two decent songs, and this "new" release of Plant scratching his balls while Page gets high is a non-starter for me. 90% of everything is crap, including Led Zeppelin.
Most music is worth exactly one listen. You can tell right away if you're going to need to hear it again.
The idea that a song is meant for multiple listens is an interesting claim but does not support the argument. If you won't like a song then what is the purpose of listening to it again? This whole perspective is backwards. Is it our responsibility to listen to songs multiple times, or is it simply the goal of an artist to make songs that we would listen to multiple times?
What any object is "meant for" shouldn't dictate how you use it.
>Is it our responsibility to listen to songs multiple times, or is it simply the goal of an artist to make songs that we would listen to multiple times?
Ours obviously. Only trivial pop can be dismissed (or ear-worm its way) on a single listen. And the best works, the ones with the most depth, take multiple listenings to even begin to fully appreciate.
One might not care about all this, and drop stuff they bought/downloaded to listen summarily in one listening. It's a free country, and nobody says they should be forced to do otherwise.
But then -- and that's my argument, that person is not that different than people amassing tons of music and not hearing most of it even once. They might be slightly more involved, but not much more.
>What any object is "meant for" shouldn't dictate how you use it
Well, that's one viewpoint, a modern consumerist, where it's all about the individual and their whims, where their taste, consumption habits, and choices shouldn't be questioned.
I opt for another, older viewpoint, where the individual should raise themselves to appreciate culture (music, books, movies, etc) and their choices can always be questioned and improved, and they can (and should) always strive to be better educated on them. In other words, a master work of art, does very much dictate how people use it, and if they're ever gonna get it, they should follow that path.
I'm not convinced that it's as obvious as you say, once the listener has "raise[d] themselves to appreciate culture." Once you've gained some appreciation for and understanding of music, within styles to which you're accustomed, you develop a sense of what will reward further listening and what will not. Is it infallible? Probably not. But even if it's not good enough for a published critic, it's enough to find me good music to listen to.
Trent Reznor described this as "albums that make you work for it". You don't like them the first time you hear them (or they just sound monotonous and undifferentiated). You don't like them the second time.
But on subsequent listenings you start to notice things, things become familiar and you start liking it. And the crazy thing is that a lot of the time those albums (or artists) are the ones that get catapulted into "best album of all time" statuses.
Definitely some of my top artists/albums of all time are ones that did not appeal to me on the first few listens.
This is an interesting consideration when it comes to video content as well. Sometimes I wish Netflix allowed sorting by how many accounts "watched more than once".
Spotify actually changed my habits, in this respect.
Before, I was the quintessential hoarder, I bought CDs, bought albums on Bandcamp and torrented a ton of music. Why only get one album, when you can get the whole discography?
On Spotify, because everything is just available right there with basically no effort, I don't have to find and collect anything. I just listen to the music, and click "save" on the songs I like. The daily mixes help me listen to those same songs again, or I just put all of my saved songs on shuffle.
I'll also save favorite albums as playlists, and I've listened to those a whole lot more than when I was listening to locally-stored MP3s.
I do have a "albums to check out" list still, but it's significantly smaller than what I used to have.
The "music I'm interested in" pipeline is a firehose and I have to put it in a queue -- there is no other choice. There just aren't hours in the day to listen to things as they come to me.
not really the same but I have quite a few vinyl records that have never been played. Many of them I have on other formats, but a few are just too precious to risk playing on my cheap equipment.
I have 30,000+ songs in my music library. I've taken the time to meticulously tag each and every song when adding music to my library.
I currently use MusicBee and love it. It's somewhat lightweight and its tagging tools are great. I've also used Media Monkey for a few years and that also has great tagging tools, but it's not as lightweight as MusicBee.
I only ever use iTunes for purchasing songs I can't get via other channels such as b-sides or whatever.
mostly about my yearly music picks.
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